Closure

Twice I have lost my best friend.

Most of you know who I am talking about and we will leave it at that in terms of her identity just for the sake of being nice. Last fall when she and her boyfriend of nearly four years broke up, our friendship hit a wall, in a roundabout way because of the break-up (silly me for thinking I could be friends with everyone). Then in December when she found out Adam was leaving for Iraq, she struck up conversation again and was there for me when I was dealing with it - for a while.

On my birthday shit hit the fan again when her ex-boyfriend, who is a good friend of mine, was at my birthday and she was there as well. She said some incredibly nasty things and stormed out and I never had a chance to say one word. She knew prior to the event that he would be there, and I even asked that she go to dinner with me one night and he go to the bars another night. That way I could spend time with both of them and not having to worry about a fight starting. This was apparently unreasonable to her and she said fine, she would not come to either. At this point I didn't know what to say and simply told her if she chose to come, I did not want any drama, as I am trying to remain neutral and be friends with both parties. Obviously this did not work out, as we have not spoken since she left my birthday party. That night she sent me a not-so-nice email basically outlining why I was an awful friend, and went so far as to accuse me of having ulterior motives for being friends with her ex. This was very hurtful, considering she was my first college friend ever and one I considered to be among the best of the best friends I have ever had.

Here's the kicker: today, her birthday, she sent me a short email. I won't relay it here, but it was something to the effect of, we were both hurt and she would like to talk, but understands if I don't want to. I honestly have no idea what I want to do in this situation. Back in January I chose to not respond to her email because it was so full of holes and things that were outright not true that I didn't think I needed to justify myself or my actions at all. She was the one who acted wrongly and that was that. However, I think we have both had enough time where we could possibly talk things over without getting very upset at one another, but I am not sure I see a friendship again. This is really hard for me, harder than most people know. People often see me make jokes about the situation and I know I do a lot, but losing your best friend not once, but twice, takes its toll. I do miss her and I miss the friendship we had, but I simply do not know if I can trust her again. Over and over, her ex and Adam told me they would not make me chose between them or her, but she would. I didn't believe them, and they even went so far as to say if I had to stay away from them for a while until she calmed down, it was fine because they would always be there for me when I came back to them. Still I didn't listen because I thought true friends would never make me choose, so I tried to stay neutral. I want to believe that things will be different this time around, but her ex and I are good friends - nothing more. He has been like a brother to me, especially with Adam leaving. He has a girlfriend, one who is clearly not me, and it is not even as though I talk to him every single day of the week. I think it would be a good idea for me to at least respond to her email, because there are some things that need to be cleared up and even if this is the last time we ever speak to one another, at least it will be on somewhat good terms and not the yelling that happened on my birthday. I guess at this point, just having closure on the whole situation would be nice, and probably a lot more healthy too. I am not looking for us to be the "bestest of the bestest buds" again, because realistically I don't think it is even possible. But having something that would signify an end would be nice and I would feel better about letting the whole thing go - something which I think I have done for the most part, but I think by just letting her email sit there and me not respond to it, then things are still lingering and I do not want that. I don't know what I want really, I just want everyone to be happy for once, because someone is always pissed ay someone and it's getting to the point where I want to just say enough is enough, everyone shut up and lets just start over. Ah well, we'll just have to see what happens...